Computer hardware advances, and price reductions

[Kev Murphy]

When I first bought a 128 MEG USB stick, around 2003, it cost $40

I see that ALDI have 64 GIG USB drives for sale tomorrow for just $26.99 ... 512 X  larger!

1995, my PC had a 200 meg hard drive... today I have 15 terrabytes storage, 90% full!

Ram memory mid 90's used to cost $100 per 1 meg stick.... today I have 16 Gig (16,000 meg)

.... one and a half million dollars worth of ram at the old prices.

All this within the past 20 years, what will it be like in another 20?

[Kev Murphy]

Interesting to note that the average smart phone of today is several hundred times more powerful than the computers used to put Neil Armstrong on the moon.

[Brock]

A VIC 20 was more powerful than that in the lunar Lander..

[Biggles]

A VIC 20 was more powerful than that in the lunar Lander..

Yep, and I had one.  It had 3 kb of RAM.  I bought a 16 kb extension chip (can't remember how much it was, but those were 1984 dollars anyway).
I saved typed-in programmes onto cassette tapes.  Could take 5 minutes to save a 10 kb programme.  You loaded your programme each time you wanted it from a cassette since there was no on-board storage.

Ah, the good old days!     

[Lionel]

During an Army trip to the UK in 1982 I purchased a dual 360kb floppy external drive for 900 pounds (AS$1660 in those days).
In 1983 I bought a dot matrix printer for $1100. It wasn't even bi-directional and I think it printed at 40 chars per second.
In 1987 I bought a 20 MByte HDD for $700; a Microsoft mouse for $200.
I could not afford to buy an Apple II though I now have a clone in my collection.

[WendyL]

Our first computer was a Commodore 64 in around 1982-83.  One of the maths teachers brought his C64 in from home to do computing once a week with the 4 top year 7 maths students from the school (me and 3 boys).  My favourite activity in computing was writing the for-next loops.

Now all every student at my kids' school is provided with a tablet and there is Wi-Fi throughout the school....

[BigTed]

In the IT field, we have what's called "Moore's Law" - not really a law, but an observed trend. It was originally proposed back in the 60s and has held mostly true right through to today. Every time we think the limit has been reached, a new breakthrough comes along to extend it.

Modern interpretation of it: every 2 years capacity/performance doubles, while the cost reduces.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

[Kev Murphy]

I can remember buying a 20 Meg external hard drive for my Commodore 64, just to save time loading games from tape.
It cost me $550, plus a ram expansion card, $270, plus 4 sticks of 1 meg ram, I forget the price of them, tho?

[BigTed]

Looxury! - when I was a wee lad... I spent $1200 on a 20MB Seagate drive in 1984.

[alans1100]

I remember a 20MB PC (20 MB HD, 2 x  5 inch Floppy Drives ) as being state of the art and the TAFE tutor couldn't see a need for anything larger. Using DOS commands to get it all working.

[StinkyPete]

My first computer was an Amiga 500 and I thought I was the ducks guts when I bought a 25 Meg Hard Drive for it for around $200 if I remember right.